Richard Costain’s firm built much of Selsdon in the 1920s and 1930s, from gabled semis to the white Art Deco houses on Addington Road, and nearly every house has its own drive. London Carpet Cleaning has worked Selsdon, CR2, since 2009, out to the edge of Selsdon Wood. Our fixed prices start at £36 for a bedroom, and whether the pile is wool or synthetic it is dry within 6 to 7 hours.
Costain’s garden village and the smallholdings beyond it
Most of Selsdon was one farm of more than a square mile until the 1920s. The farm buildings went up in 1809 along with six pairs of cottages on the lane to Addington for the workers, and numbers 240 and 242 Addington Road are the last pair left. When the estate broke up, Richard Costain Ltd built much of the new suburb over the 1920s and 1930s, and the family gave Foxearth Spinney to the council to save its group of mature beech trees. In the 1930s Costain also built the houses Selsdon is known for: white rendered cubes with strong horizontal lines and no mouldings, influenced by the International and Art Deco styles, with garages at street level for the new car-owning families.
Further south the story is different. In the early 1920s the Surrey Garden Village Trust bought the Ashen Vale and Selsdon Vale estates, about 300 acres, to divide into smallholdings for ex-servicemen; the plots proved too small to farm. After the war, estates such as Forestdale went up on old smallholding ground to the east.
Selsdon Wood, 200 acres of woodland and five large meadows owned by the National Trust and opened in 1936, lies along the southern edge. There is no railway station; the old Selsdon station, which was never near the village, closed in 1983 while still lit by gas. The 64, 359, 412 and 433 buses serve the area.
Selsdon Park and Hamsey Green in figures
| Share of homes | % |
|---|---|
| Semi-detached houses | 50.9% |
| Detached houses | 32.5% |
| Built 1919 to 1944 | 31.1% |
| Built 1945 to 1972 | 43.4% |
| Three-bedroom homes | 48.9% |
| Owned outright | 44.3% |
The census area here is named Selsdon Park and Hamsey Green, and it reaches from the south of Selsdon out towards the Surrey border. The numbers back up the history. Costain’s inter-war years account for 31.1% of homes, but the biggest share, 43.4%, went up between 1945 and 1972. Either way it is a place of houses: half are semis (50.9%) and another third detached (32.5%), and fewer than one home in ten is a flat.
For a carpet cleaner that means stairs in nearly every job and a three-bedroom layout in about half of them (48.9%). A three-bedroom semi in the garden village, with a through-lounge and its staircase, is £210. The inter-war houses lean to wool, and the post-war semis more often to a synthetic, so we check the fibre before the water goes down. With 44.3% of households owning outright, plenty of carpets have been down for a long time, and the stair lane is where the years show. Central heating is missing in just 0.8% of homes, which keeps drying times short.
Figures: ONS Census 2021 (Croydon 039) and VOA council tax stock, March 2024.
Mud off the wood, lanes on the wool
The job we are asked about most in Selsdon is the family lounge and stairs in a long-held house, where the carpet is wool, the colour is often pale, and a winter of boots and visitors has darkened the same lanes. We clean those by hot-water extraction with the moisture kept down, so the wool dries safely and the stair carpet is dry within 6 to 7 hours. With the woods so close, much of what we lift is fine woodland mud carried in off Selsdon Wood and the bridleways, worked deep into the base of the pile before the surface even looks worn.
A fresh patch of that mud pre-treats and lifts well. A dark mark walked into a pale wool over a whole season we can lighten a great deal, though not always remove to nothing, and we say that at the door. Leather sofas are the other regular job here, where the seats have gone sticky and dull.
Drives, the Triangle and the school run
Access is the easy part of working in Selsdon. There is no controlled parking zone in the village, unlike the Sanderstead permit streets nearby, and with drives at most houses the van usually sits right outside and we are set up in minutes. The pinch points are at the Triangle, where the shops and the 2007 Selsdon Clock stand at the Old Farleigh Road junction, and on Addington Road outside Selsdon Primary School at the start and end of the school day. If you live on those stretches, we book you outside the drop-off and pick-up.
On the morning, move shoes and coats off the bottom stairs, and take small rugs up off the carpet so we can clean underneath. If your house sits above its garage, up a flight of garden steps, say so, and we bring a longer hose.
How much does carpet cleaning cost in Selsdon?
We give you the full price before we arrive and do not charge to come out; Selsdon pays what the rest of London pays.
- Carpet, per bedroom, from £36
- Carpet, living room, from £43
- Through-lounge, from £61
- Stairs, one flight, from £41
- Two-seater sofa from £57; armchair from £33
- Rug up to 3m² from £35; mattress from £35
Send us the list of rooms and you will have a firm price straight back. Get a free quote, or call us on 020 8077 8090.
Carpets, leather and the good rugs
Fitted carpets and stairs get hot-water extraction, set to the fibre: low-moisture for the wool in the older Selsdon homes, a deeper hot rinse for a tougher synthetic, and in both cases the grit comes out of the base of the pile. We also clean sofas and armchairs, including leather we wash and feed back to a softer finish, and we clean wool and pale rugs in the home with proper rug cleaning, so a wine or dinner-party spill is pre-treated first and a silk piece is judged from a photo before we start. Neighbouring Sanderstead and South Croydon are on the same round, and our Croydon carpet cleaning page covers the rest of the borough.
Questions from Selsdon homes
Do you cover all of Selsdon, up to the streets by Selsdon Wood?
Yes, the whole of Selsdon and the surrounding CR2 roads, from Addington Road and Farley Road across to Queenhill Road and the streets backing onto Selsdon Wood. We have cleaned this corner of Croydon since 2009, so the team knows the old Costain garden village and its inter-war houses well. Wherever you are in Selsdon, there is no call-out charge.
How easy is parking for the van in Selsdon?
Easier than most parts of London. Selsdon has no controlled parking zone, and nearly every house has its own drive or open kerb space, so the van normally sits right outside. Where a road is tight near the Triangle parades, tell us when you book and we plan the access first.
Can you feed and clean a leather sofa as well as fabric ones?
Yes. Leather two and three seaters are common in Selsdon, and the usual problem is the seats going sticky and dull where everyone sits. We clean the soiling off gently, then condition the hide so it feels supple again and the colour evens out. Fabric sofas and armchairs are cleaned by extraction and dry within a few hours.
How long does wool carpet take to dry in a Selsdon inter-war house?
Most carpets are dry within 6 to 7 hours, because the machine pulls the water back out of the pile. The wool common in older Selsdon homes, often down for years, is cleaned with less moisture so it dries without shrinking or browning. Open a window or put the heating on low and the room is back in use the same day.
Do you clean in the 1930s Art Deco houses on Addington Road?
Yes. Costain built them in the 1930s as white rendered houses with flat fronts and garages at street level, and inside they are carpeted like any house of that age. The usual jobs are the stairs and the main living room. If the garage takes up the front of the plot, tell us when you book and we will plan where the van goes and how far the hose has to run.
Is my carpet wool or synthetic, and does it matter?
It matters for the clean, not for the price. Wool needs a cooler, lower-moisture rinse so it does not shrink or brown; a synthetic can take more heat and a stronger pre-treatment. In Selsdon we find both, often in the same street, since the inter-war and post-war houses sit side by side. We check the fibre on arrival, at the edge of a cupboard or under a sofa, before anything else.
Every clean in Selsdon carries a re-clean promise: if a spot reappears, we come back for it, free. Our cleaners are DBS-checked and fully insured, and CR2 has been part of our round since 2009.
